A change in UAB’s global address list for the campus and UAB Medicine email systems will make it easier for users to search for email addresses across UAB.

The current format for searching email user names is in alphabetical order based on First Name, Middle and then Last Name.

On July 22, the global address list change will modify the search order to Last Name, First Name Middle, Suffix. This will make it easier and quicker for users to find the correct email address on campus.

New incoming messages will bear the new name order for senders, but old messages will retain the old name order.

Feedback from campus customers prompted the change, and the proposal was reviewed by an advisory committee of IT employees from across campus.

UAB IT is coordinating with HSIS to make the change across the University and UAB Medicine.

If you have any questions about the change, please contact AskIT (for campus customers) at askit.uab.edu or HSIS (for hospital employees).

If you have feedback or suggestions for improvements to technology at UAB, please visit SPARK at ideas.uab.edu.

UAB IT is committed to making institutional and home-use software more accessible for the UAB community by simplifying the software distribution process and streamlining the approval path for fee-based orders.

There will be an opportunity for students, faculty and staff to review and provide feedback on the new software distribution design on Friday, July 8, from 1:30-2:30 p.m. in the Hill Student Center room 318.

Questions can be directed to Shira Fogel at sfogel@uab.edu or 996-6274.

A phishing email purporting to be from the "IT Service & Support Desk" has hit several email inboxes among faculty and staff at UAB.

The fake email is likely an attempt to steal user information and should be deleted. The subject line may be "Dear Employee/Staff and Student," and it asks recipients to check email access due to a maintenance update. Clicking the email takes users to a non-UAB site called "IT Security Systems Update." A copy of the email is below:



If you receive an email with a hidden link such as “Click Here,” do the hover test. Hover your mouse over the link and look at the lower left pane to see where the link leads.

Look at the URL of the website you are visiting. 

To report suspected spam to AskIT, please follow the instructions here.

Follow these additional tips to avoid being a phishing victim:

• Do NOT click links in messages that ask you to log in. Type a trusted Web address in your browser or Google for the Web site if you don’t know the address.
• Never type personal, sensitive information (such as passwords or account numbers) on Web sites without verifying the Web site’s authenticity and security — look for an “https” in the address bar.
• Verify the address. Malicious web sites may look identical to a legitimate site, but the address may use a variation in spelling or a different domain (.com vs. .edu).
• Misspellings and grammatical errors can be a dead giveaway in phishing emails and subject lines.
• If you are unsure whether a request is legitimate, contact the company directly. Do NOT use contact information provided in the request.
• Don’t open attachments. They may contain viruses or malware that can infect your computer.
• Protect your password. Information security and IT officials at both the university and UAB Hospital will never ask users for passwords or any other sensitive information.
• Report suspicious activity. If you have any questions or you receive a suspicious email that you want to report, university employees and students can call the AskIT Help Desk at 205-996-5555. Hospital employees can call the HSIS Help Desk at 205-934-8888.

In the coming months, TechConnect — our technology store powered by UAB IT and located in the Hill Student Center — will be offering some technology products for personal purchase, such as laptops, tablets, limited accessories and fee-based support services, to faculty and staff for personal systems.

UAB IT is looking for feedback from the UAB community related to offering a payroll deduction option for these purchases to make it more convenient for employees.

To be approved to offer a payroll deduction option, UAB guidelines require a minimum of 100 persons to indicate they would utilitize the payroll deduction option. If you are interested, please fill out the survey here.

Mobile devices have become one of the primary ways we communicate and interact with each other. The power of a computer is now at our fingertips, allowing us to bank, shop, view medical history, attend to work remotely, and communicate virtually anywhere. With all these convenient features come added risks, but here are some tips to protect your devices and your personal information.

• Password-protect your devices. Give yourself more time to protect your data and remote wipe your devices if it's lost or stolen by enabling passwords, PINs, fingerprint scans or other forms of authentication.
• Secure those devices and backup data. Make sure that you can remotely lock or wipe each mobile device. That also means backing up data on each device in case you need to use the remote wipe function.
• Verify app permissions. Don't forget to review app specifications and privacy permissions before installing it.
• Update operating systems. Security fixes or patches for mobile devices' operating systems are often included in these updates.
• Be cautious of public WiFi hot spots. Avoid financial or other sensitive transactions while connected to public WiFi hotspots.

After weeks of input from IT customers across campus — including students, faculty, staff, researchers and IT employees — UAB IT has drafted an IT Strategic Plan designed to empower everyone at UAB.

The draft plan has been published on the IT Strategic Plan web site. Members of the UAB community are encouraged to review the plan and provide additional feedback within a 30-day period ending June 24, after which the final plan will be reviewed by the strategic plan executive committee and published.

Feedback is welcome on the SPARK platform, where there are campaigns for each IT strategic imperative.

“We have welcomed input from across campus as we finalize this strategic plan,” said Dr. Curt Carver, vice president and CIO. “As our partners, you have helped co-author this plan, which will help prioritize the technology improvements worthy of advancing UAB.”

When the plan is published in June, it will provide UAB IT with a roadmap for developing those technology improvements. But Carver noted that the plan is a living document that may evolve as the needs of campus change.

“When we publish the final strategic plan, we will embark on the real work — completing the objectives that will help us support and empower our world-class university with world-class IT services,” Carver said.

Help kick off summer with Screen on the Green, a free movie event on the Campus Green, sponsored by UAB IT and TechBridge.

Faculty, staff and students are invited with their families to watch “The Incredibles” on Thursday, June 9. The movie will begin at 8 p.m., but attendees are invited to begin gathering at 7 p.m. on the Campus Green. Bring blankets, lawn chairs and coolers with snacks to enjoy a fun night under the stars. (Please remember that alcohol is not allowed on campus.) Food trucks will also be on hand with a variety of dinner and dessert options.

RSVP for yourself and your number of guests here.

UAB IT is sponsoring the event to celebrate a year of technology-related successes on campus. Partner sponsor TechBridge is a non-profit organization that drives community impact by brining affordable technology and business expertise to other nonprofits, specifically those that are on the frontline of alleviating the causes of poverty. Other partners include SIM Alabama, TechBirmingham, the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, Innovation Depot and Infragard.

UAB IT is hosting Microsoft's Education Tech Days event on campus May 18-19.

The event is targeted at technical managers and support personnel from schools and universities across the Southeast and will cover many products and technologies. Sessions will be hosted by Microsoft specialists, partners or peers from other schools and universities in attendance.

Sessions topics will include collaboration for education (Office 365); Microsoft cloud; SQL Server 2016; modern data visualization and analytics; Windows 10; and more.

A data summit will be held Wednesday, May 18, in the same location as Tech Days. This event is targeted for academic and data managers and support personnel from schools and universities across the Southeast.

The event is open to both internal and external attendees, so registration is required. The event will be held in the Hill Student Center, ballrooms C and D.

Registration can be accessed here.

UAB’s 3-year subscription to Adobe’s Creative Cloud product will enter the final year of the agreement beginning in June 2016 and run through May 2017. For that final year UAB IT will be able to offer subscriptions for $150 instead of the current $300. In addition, the $150 pricing for a subscription through May 2017 is retroactive to any customers that subscribed to Creative Cloud since April 1, 2016.

Take advantage of this opportunity quickly to get full value of the price reduction and length of the subscription as the $150 will not be prorated during the year and will be valid only through May 2017. Pricing for any new agreement with Adobe as of June 1, 2017, and subsequent subscription prices to UAB customers, will be based on negotiations with Adobe next year.

Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions include:

·      Photoshop CC, for image editing and composition

·      Illustrator CC, for vector graphics and illustration

·      InDesign CC, for page design, layout and publishing

·      Dreamweaver CC, for web sites, app design and coding

·      Adobe Premiere Pro CC, for video production and editing

·      After Effects CC, for cinematic visual effects and motion graphics

·      Acrobat XI Pro, for creating, editing and signing PDF documents and forms

·      Adobe Muse CC for web site design without coding.

To learn more about Adobe Creative Cloud and place an order, click here.

Over the past three weeks, UAB IT customers have taken an active part in shaping the IT Strategic Plan — voicing their opinions in 14 town hall meetings and eight committees, even jotting ideas on Post-It notes. 

As the next phase of strategic planning begins, students, faculty and staff are encouraged to continue sharing their ideas on the SPARK platform, where there is a campaign for each of the seven strategic imperatives.

Getting campus feedback through the strategic planning period has been essential to shaping a plan that will empower UAB students, faculty, staff and researchers through technology. 

By the end of May, an executive committee will approve the draft of the plan before it is shared with the campus for a 30-day review period.

Hundreds of people participated in IT town halls in April, providing feedback that will be incorporated into the draft plan as committees continue to shape IT strategy and priorities for the next three years. Committees are made up of faculty, staff and students from across campus disciplines and departments.

"This is not our strategic plan; this is your strategic plan," Vice President and CIO Dr. Curt Carver said. 

During the 30-day review period, UAB IT will host two town halls to showcase the strategic plan, which will be published in June.

But while the plan will guide IT strategy and priorities for the future, Carver noted that the IT Strategic Plan will be a living, breathing document that will evolve as campus needs change.

Details about the plan, committees, strategic imperatives and town halls can be found at uab.edu/empoweruab.

A phone scam targeting college students across the country is spoofing the FBI's phone number, threatening students and parents that they will be arrested if they do not pay thousands of dollars for such alleged debts as tuition, student loans or parking tickets.

The FBI has warned consumers to be on alert for such scams. Similar scams — in which malicious callers pretend to be law enforcement — have targeted UAB students in recent months, even costing them and their parents money.

The FBI will never call private citizens requesting money.

Often, callers in such scams appear to have students' personal information, but it is important to note that there has been no breach of personal information at UAB. Malicious callers often try to solicit more personal information from their victims over the course of the call.

If students or parents receive a call that seems suspicious, they should disconnect immediately and notify law enforcement.

If you receive these calls, do not follow the caller's instructions. Instead, the FBI advises you should:

• Notify your banking institutions.
• Contact the three major credit bureaus and request an alert be put on your file.
• Contact your local law enforcement agencies if you feel you are in immediate danger.
• File a complaint through the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.

Need to log on to WiFi while you're communiting across campus?

UAB IT is working with Parking & Transportation Service to outfit all of the Blazer Express buses with digital signage and WiFi. The digital signs will convey emergency information as well as general content from around campus.

In addition, all buses will have a WiFi hotspot for improved connectivity to the internet. 

The signs and WiFi are in testing currently and will be piloted on two buses over the next four to six weeks. Plans are to roll out to all buses in the coming months.

Planning a vacation? People are frequently more vulnerable when traveling because a break from their regular routine or encounters with unfamiliar situations often result in less cautious behavior. If this sounds like you, or someone you know, these five tips will help you protect yourself and guard your privacy.

• Track that device! Install a device finder or manager on your mobile device in case it's lost or stolen. Make sure it has remote wipe capabilities and also protects against malware.
• Avoid social media announcements about your travel plans. It's tempting to share your upcoming vacation plans with family and friends, but consider how this might make you an easy target for local or online thieves. While traveling, avoid using social media to "check in" to airports and consider posting those beautiful photos after you return home. Find out how burglars are using your vacation posts to target you in this infographic.
• Traveling soon? If you're traveling with a laptop or mobile device, remove or encrypt confidential information. Consider using a laptop or device designated for travel with no personal information, especially when traveling out of the country.
• Limit personal information stored on devices. Use a tool like Identity Finder to locate your personally identifiable information (e.g., SSN, credit card numbers, or bank accounts) on your computer, then secure or remove that information.
• Physically protect yourself and your devices. Use a laptop lock, avoid carrying identification cards, shred sensitive paperwork before you recycle it, and watch out for "shoulder surfers" at the ATM.

UAB IT is committed to empowering the success of the University’s students, faculty, staff and researchers through technology.

To ensure that UAB IT is responding to those technology needs, the University community is invited to become active participants in building an IT roadmap for campus. Visit uab.edu/empoweruab to see a timeline of the strategic plan process, read about the strategic imperatives and see the schedule of town halls.

“UAB is a world-class educational and research university that deserves a world-class IT organization,” Vice President and CIO Curtis Carver said. “We want our students, faculty and staff to help co-author the IT Strategic Plan to help us prioritize technology improvements worthy of advancing UAB.”

Seven committees — one for each of UAB IT’s strategic imperatives — will begin meeting April 4 to preview the draft strategic plan. The following week, UAB IT will begin hosting 14 open town halls, with two scheduled for each imperative. Click here to view the schedule for town halls.

Students, faculty and staff are invited to attend the town halls to provide input on the plan. After those meetings, the committees will review and incorporate feedback before a series of review poster sessions.

Students, faculty and staff will then be able to review the draft strategic plan and make comments before the final strategic plan is published in June.

Oracle users have the opportunity to add a new layer of security to the system that houses employees’ financial and personal information at UAB.

UAB has deployed a security challenge, a series of questions for which Oracle users will provide unique answers. Each time a user logs in, he or she will be presented with a random question. 

The security challenge is part of a series of improvements to make the Oracle system more secure, which have been made with the support and endorsement of the President’s Risk Cabinet. The Security Challenge will be mandatory as of June 7.

If users opt in to the security challenge, they will also have the option to click a “Remember Me” box, which will skip the security challenge using cookies in the user’s browser. If a user switches to a different device or a different browser or clears the browser’s cookies, the user will be prompted to answer a security challenge question again.

Last month, Oracle changed its login page to match the Central Authentication System screen used on other UAB systems. And last year, UAB introduced a new Oracle RedFlag notification system that uses the same technology as the B-Alert system to notify employees if changes have been made in their personal information, direct deposit accounts or tax withholding forms via Oracle Self Service.